Ricochet Joe

by Dean Koontz

past, present, future—existed in the instant the universe came into being, but also in all the infinite number of universes that exist alongside one another.

“Here in Little City,” she said, “lives a traveler who didn’t come from this world.

pellucid

7 HOUND OF THE HOUND The dog lay in the corner on her bed, by all appearances

I’m like the hound of the hound.”

question occurred to him. “Uh . . . how do I kill it?” She took her smartphone from the table and speed-dialed the chief. “Daddy, he’s ready.”

8 THE CHIEF Chief Harold Montclair appeared to be too

“Five failed, huh? What about the other two?” “They’re dead,” the chief said.

9 MADE STUPID BY LOVE Portia had said that Joe should let his intuition guide

his hand back, however, and whispered, “Button,” and was on the hunt.

10 WHAT LIVES WITHIN Along a route defined by nine points of contact, Joe

him, Joe saw the fiend within. Dulcie became semitransparent, as if made of milky glass. Fixed to her brain stem, the parasite hung like a fat inky-black poor

favorite of his grandmother’s, written long before Joe had been born: “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” His eyes flooded with tears as he shot her dead.

11 WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? Shaking with horror and grief, weeping as he had not wept since childhood, making the most pitiful sounds that

panic and horror multiplied. He turned and hurried toward the foyer and the front door.

12 NOTHING LESS THAN EVERYTHING

kitchen, Agnes Jordan began

not screamed when she’d seen Dulcie dead. And these were neither shouts of shocked discovery nor cries of grief. These were screams of terror.

13 THE PUPPET Joe ran for his life, ran to preserve the meaning

But by Brownian movement we progress, sent angling off this way and that by the impact of everyone we meet and every event that we cannot foresee.

Joe hurried to the hallway and saw himself running toward the front door. He waited a moment before following.

QUOTABLE

house, where a bright future might yet await Joe Mandel, that ordinary young man raced

he would never see again in this life, said that you knew you were getting a little wisdom when you were able to see that even loss could be beautiful if it made you love more the things that hadn’t been lost. Portia had

cared. She nearly said, With all the bugs, I imagine a lot of your guests are entomologists. But she didn’t want to leave him with a more